News and Opinions on Professional Wrestling

Wrestling’s Ailing Stars

The wrestling world has seen a plethora of injuries in recent months. Many of them in WWE, a company known for not letting stars put themselves in as much risk as some other promotions, where wrestlers are able to showcase a more highflying style with cutting-edge move sets that are constantly evolving.

Many stars outside of WWE, such as Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and others choose to pursue their careers elsewhere for that reason, which would lead many to believe that WWE may be the safer place to work as people are urged to ‘tone it down’ usually upon entering the company.

Stars such as AJ Styles were known for their high-risk move-sets that get switched out for a smaller list of offensive moves that should avoid any major injuries. As we have all seen though it is the more grueling schedule that WWE stars face that is the main cause for the high rate of injury and is likely much more noticeable due to how many people are on the combined rosters of WWE.

205Live star Noam Dar is out with injury, NXT is missing Tomasso Ciampa, and Drew McIntyre who is out due to a torn bicep suffered at NXT Takeover: Wargames in his Championship defense against Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas. McIntyre has stated he expects to be back by WrestleMania weekend leading many to believe he will return at the TakeOver event the night before or even enter the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania. This past weekend Bianca Belair was injured after a misstep while taking Ember Moon’s finisher at a live event.

Smackdown is missing one of Jinder Mahal’s henchmen Samir Singh until the end of the year, while RAW has lost many of its top stars. Samoa Joe, Jason Jordan, Big Cass, R-Truth, Alicia Fox, Jeff Hardy, Dean Ambrose who will likely be out until October, and we recently saw Paige return from injury to then sustain a possible career-ending injury seeing her plans halted.

It is unclear if Paige will ever be cleared to compete again and looks highly unlikely at this point though she remains a part of the RAW roster mainly leading her Absolution faction teammates Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose to victory from the sidelines.

These injuries have affected tournament brackets, massive pushes, title reigns and the overall landscape of the active roster.

Samoa Joe was to feud with John Cena and also team with Bayley in the Mixed Match Challenge on Facebook Watch. Roman Reigns and others suffered illnesses leading to Kurt Angle taking his place in the long-awaited S.H.I.E.L.D. Reunion match against Braun Strowman, Kane, The Miz, Sheamus, and Cesaro. Dean Ambrose then suffered his injury effectively ending the run of the faction at the current time, and the rumored heel turn by Ambrose to mimic Seth Rollin’s epic betrayal of his brethren and teammates. Jason Jordan was added in Dean’s place in an attempt to save the situation and keep the storyline relevant, yet he too faced injury and surgery, ruling him like the others out of this years WrestleMania.

Jeff Hardy and his brother Matt returned triumphantly to WWE at last years WrestleMania 33 and has since been sidelined with an injury leading to Matt’s singles run as his ‘Woken’ persona.

So, as you can see RAW is by far the most injury-ridden of the brands, in need of their returns which for the most part will occur after the Superstar Shake-Up at Backlash after WrestleMania, which will be the first of many dual branded pay per views going forward.

Whether it’s the rougher style outside of WWE or the rigorous schedule faced by those signed to the company. We can all agree that there are far too many injuries at the present time and that slowing things down, spreading things out more, would not only make them mean more but also give us more time spent on each individual superstar or tag team.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to all those currently out with injury and we can’t wait to see them all make their returns as soon as they are well enough. Hopefully, we see fewer injuries for the rest of the year, just returns, debuts, and call-ups.